Bacon Wrapped Turkey

That’s right, I said it: Bacon Wrapped Turkey. Bacon makes everything better – including Thanksgiving. In-laws driving you crazy? Can’t keep the kids calm while you’re slaving in the kitchen? 49ers getting beat by the Hawks? Turkey getting dry? All of this can be solved by one magical animal I call “bacon”. Wrapping a turkey in bacon for most of the cooking time keeps the turkey moist and delicious. And since the bacon is removed for the last hour of cooking, you can enjoy the bacon earlier to solve all those in-law, upset kiddo, 49ers loosing blues.

Bacon wrapped, juicy, easy, fool-proof turkey!

Bacon Wrapped Turkey

I don’t now why this isn’t a common turkey roasting concept. Wrapping a turkey in bacon allows fat and flavor to slowly drizzle into the turkey meat for most of of the roasting period. It’s a hassle-free way of keeping your turkey flavored and juicy.

For turkey purchasing, I recommend buying a refrigerated, NOT frozen, turkey. Only because I’m too impatientlazy smart to buy a frozen one and defrost it for days. There are a lot of labels on a turkey – range free, no antibiotics, etc. The only one that you should ignore is gluten free – they are all gluten free. The other labels you can buy per your preferences (no antibiotics, vegetarian fed, etc).

Lots of labels to read, but the one you can ignore is gluten free. If your turkey has gluten, it has problems. Turkey is, by nature, gluten free

To prep the turkey, remove any plastic-y looking things holding the legs together. Remove the bag that’s hidden inside under the neck. This bag holds the giblets & neck. These items can be brined and roasted right along with the turkey then reserved later for stock or gravy.

Removing bag of giblets & neck before roasting

Giblets and neck can be used for stock or gravy later. I throw all of this in with brine & roast with turkey to be used at a later time

Brining takes overnight to one day to be effective. If you don’t have enough time to brine, season your turkey with salt, pepper, thyme, parsley, sage, and rub skin (including under the breast skin) with butter or olive oil. If brining, rub butter over skin, under breast skin and place in a large brining bag. Add brining seasoning and the beer. At this point you can add water to cover the turkey, but this makes turkey + water = super heavy. Filling it with water allows all seasoning to cover turkey so there is no need to flip. I don’t add the water and flip every 6 hours. Keep refrigerated overnight to 24 hours.

On cooking day, preheat oven to 325 degrees, drain turkey and place on a roasting rack. Stuff cavity of turkey with onion, garlic, lemons and, optionally, stuffing (I used Stove Top). Tie legs together with cooking twine. COVER IN BACON and celebrate a little inside. And now, for some bacon photos.

Bacon + Turkey = Easy & Juicy!

Bacon Art

Roast turkey with bacon, basting with drippings from the bottom of the pan every 45 minutes. Roast with bacon until the last hour of roasting. You remove the bacon because it’s fulfilled its usefulness and to make sure you get a beautiful, crispy, brown skin.

Halfway through roasting

When bacon is removed, turkey will look like it’s been in a tanning bed too long with a one-peice swimsuit on

Cook until a internal temperature of thigh is about 160 degrees. Remove from oven and rest, covered in aluminum foil for 30 minutes. The temperature will raise slightly higher as it rests. Now have your favorite guest carve the turkey and serve! Don’t forget to set the table pretty, eat some crispy bacon, and enjoy all those happy, smiling, turkey eating guests of yours. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

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A little about me

I live in the beautiful city of San Francisco where food, ingredients, and creativity reigns supreme. Oh, and so does wine. And whiskey. While I work in finance on the weekdays, I spend my weekends and evenings obsessing over food, recipes, and photography. And wine and whiskey.
My food blog, www.MarinaGirlEats.com is a compilation of my recipes I've created over the years, the 411 on technical skills I've learned, and recipes from whatever Farmer's Market fresh food inspirations I've found that week. And although I'm a paleo practicioner, I promise not to push that crazy diet on you because (a) I love making everything from bread to cheese and (b) a blog of fish and spinach is sooooo booring.
Please visit my site www.MarinaGirlEats.com and sign up to follow so I can send you shameless posts/tweets/facebook requests on anything from perfect mashed potatoes to making your own butter.
XOXO, Erica